Get your dose of eCommerce insight that you won’t find elsewhere, direct from our retail experts.

Blog

About Us

Latest

Leeds

London

Manchester

Harrogate

First impressions are important for eCommerce businesses. We’ve all seen the statistics before: 

it can take just 17 to 50 milliseconds for people to form a first impression

. In eCommerce design, this can be quite the challenge so it’s important we get it right.

In this blog we discuss the role of design principles as part of the eCommerce experience and how designers can use these foundations to make the customerexperience enjoyableand hassle-free.

revolves around encouraging the user to make a purchase. A straightforward, simple user journey on an eCommerce website often follows this order:

The initial impression is made during the first stage, known as website discovery. During this short space of time, the user needs to be able to understand if your business is relevant to their needs. While this first impression is an uncontrollable, emotional reaction, the focus then switches to a cognitive process where the user decides if they want to continue their shopping journey with you. This next phase is all about fulfilment such as:

can they navigate your website with ease?

do the delivery options suit their timescales?

Each of these factors can be impacted by the quality of design on your eCommerce store. This is where design principles come into play.

the low down on ecommerce design principles

When we talk about eCommerce design principles, we’re essentially referring to best practice guidelines. These are the commonly accepted principles that designers can trust in and that shoppers expect from an eCommerce experience.

While expected design features will get you so far in creating an enjoyable shopping experience for your users, they won’t create the best result for your brand. That’s why we suggest using them to lay the design foundations of your store, before layering with research tailored to your brand. Only by doing this will you be able to truly understand what your business and audience needs to generate the optimum user experience.

Don’t underestimate just how valuable research can be. You may believe you already know what your eCommerce store needs from a design point of view. But research combined with design best practices gives you an even better chance of driving conversions with your users.

By researching and layering these three core areas, unique solutions can be formed that are tailormade for your business and your audiences’ needs:

Examples of features that shoppers expect from an eCommerce store include but aren’t limited to:

access to key information such as about the brand, refunds and deliverables

a homepage that succinctly summarises what the business sells

These are a good starting point when considering what features your audience will have become accustomed to using while engaging with eCommerce stores. However, the real research into your users is what will uncover invaluable design insight that can be translated on your website. 

Every eCommerce shopper is unique. Some users visit a store with a specific product in mind and swiftly make a purchase. Others use the store as part of their discovery process when deciding exactly what they want to buy, and some may simply browse to kill time.

While every element of an eCommerce store is important, different types of shoppers rely on different areas. So, how can you create a shopping experience with these various shopper personas in mind?

In some cases, such as when you’re a new business or don’t have the budget to conduct extensive audience research, using the 

Nielsen Norman Group’s 5 Types of eCommerce Shoppers

 is often an effective option. This research concluded that there are five main types of eCommerce shoppers:

These shoppers know exactly what they want and it’s all about speed. They aren’t looking to browse the site; they just want to find the product they need and checkout with ease. When designing for this persona, consider:

clear product images, descriptions and names

effective and fast site search functionality

Browsers are leisurely shoppers who are using your eCommerce store as a form of entertainment or inspiration. This is a good thing as it means there are plenty of opportunities to convert these browsers into shoppers. To help do this, consider elements such as:

listing new items, popular items or on sale products

providing access to new inventory or recommended products

the ability to save the products the user likes 

These shoppers plan to purchase but it might not happen today. They could simply be collecting product information and prices during their researching journey. Researchers may visit multiple sites but if your site is part of their research, you’re in with a chance of converting the user. Trust is significant to this persona so consider:

social proof such as UGC and genuine user reviews

Bargain hunters are quite simply looking for the best deal. The goal is to convert these people into repeat buyers by offering incentives to encourage a purchase such as discounts, coupons or free shipping. When designing for this persona, consider:

displaying sale items at different touchpoints

listing product prices and clearly labelling discounts or savings

allowing easy to redeem discounts at the checkout

These shoppers could be any of the above and they may come with a goal in mind of what they want from your website. However, this persona has no intention to visit the site again after the purchase has been made as they’re only looking to satisfy a one-time need. One-time shoppers usually aren’t familiar with the site they’re visiting. As such, it’s important to consider:

clear site navigation and product categories

trust signals such as recognised payment gateways and social proof

the ability to checkout without registration

By understanding the different motivations and habits each persona has when they visit a site can help you make decisions that improve performance and support user needs.

If you want to take a deeper dive into your specific users to create your own shopper personas, this can be done too. Using a range of industry tools and research methods, we conduct a number of tests to gain further insight. These include:

To really get under the skin of your audience and how they use your website, a UX workshop could be beneficial. During this process, 

website accessibility is also reviewed and considered

Understanding exactly who your competition is can be hugely beneficial to your brand. A competitor analysis is a great way of getting to know the wider landscape your business sits within as well as how user expectations are being met on similar eCommerce stores.

Combining this competitor research with customer data and insight from Google Analytics generates a clear idea of your market position, how you compete and what makes you stand out.This knowledge allows you to understand which elements of your website design need strengthening to push you ahead of competitors.

The research stage is also an ideal time to complete a UX audit to see what’s working and what isn’t so we can get to work making improvements. This process can also answer important questions such as:

when do users most commonly leave your site?

where are users getting stuck on your website?

Even when you’re following best practice design principles on your eCommerce store, it’s crucial to test the impact.

This is something we take seriously. With insight from the extensive research completed, our process involves testing the impact of our recommendations through visual designs before rolling them out across development.

During this time, it’s important to strike the balance of standing out among the competition versus your site still being usable. 

 – which is renowned in the design world - says that users spend most of their time on other sites meaning they want your site to work the same way as the other sites they know. Users will naturally transfer expectations from one familiar product to another they see as similar. This needs to be taken into account when designing to ensure the user can focus on their tasks rather than on learning new ways of using the site.

Testing can help with this, supporting you inavoiding wasting time, money and effort on design elements that don’t have the effect you wanted them to. Testing of visual design changes can be done with:

While our design methods are always underpinned by best practice and well-known eCommerce design principles, we tailor our solutions to the individual businesses we work with. Whether we carry out the design or work alongside your design agency, we can cater to your needs.

, we’re experienced at full redesigns, design refreshes and complete overhauls of the user experience to create the shopping journey your customers want. 

Get in touch to find out more about the way we work

the role of design principles within your eCommerce store.

Customer Acquisition and DTC Success.

why DTC brands should focus on customer retention.

Going DTC – The Stresses and Successes: An Interview With Dan Conboy.

When it comes to DTC, there are two types of brands that are usually considering this business model:

dtc for established brands who already understand eCommerce and potentially already have a website.

dtc for brands that aren’t consumer-facing such as manufacturers and wholesalers.

For those who aren’t as familiar with eCommerce, DTC is new and unchartered territory. While these brands might know how they want to use eCommerce for going DTC, there could be concerns about whether it’s the right route and how to make it a profitable endeavour.

Some brands don’t go DTC with the objective of making it their main revenue stream. Inthese cases, you may be wondering what the point is at all. The caveat of finding a profitable route to market with DTC always comes back to: 

what’s the purpose of going DTC in the first place?


DTC brands sell directly to the end consumer, cutting out the middleman typically associated with traditional retail. When done well, a host of benefits have been found from taking this approach including:

forge closer relationships with your customers

take learnings and apply them to the rest of your business

If you’re going DTC, this is an opportunity to do it properly and make the most out of your investment. Fortunately, we have plenty of first-hand experience and insight to share on this topic. If you want to find out about what DTC is and how it can impact your business, read our blogs:

going dtc – the stresses and successes: an interview with dan conboy

why dtc brands should focus on customer retention

But for now, let’s get back to DTC and profitability.

When crafting a go-to-market strategy, it’s important to get to the bottom of why you want to go DTC in the first place and what exactly you consider as profitable.

Every business who creates an eCommerce website wants to sell products. But there are many other success metrics that you can reap the benefits of as part of going DTC. It’s about understanding if these mean enough to your business to warrant the investment. Examples of these metrics could include:

Going DTC may be to serve a functional purpose by providing customers with a different shopping channel to make more sales. If your definition of profit is unit sales and your brand sells mainstream products through multiple stockists, then generating profit with DTC could be a tall order.

Think about it from the end-consumers point of view. If you sell a mainstream beer that you can pick up in any supermarket, why would a shopper go to your eCommerce store to purchase it? Surely picking it up in their weekly food shop would be much more convenient. As such, DTC should rarely be based upon a pure unit sales model. Yes, you should aim for the venture to be profitable and commercially successful, but it must be seen in terms of what value it can bring to the table beyond sales. 

Maybe you want to go DTC to build a connection with your customers, capture invaluable feedback to inform future business decisions and create a loyal customer base.

Going DTC puts all marketing and eCommerce considerations into your hands. Communicating who your brand is, your mission and your products alongside your customer stories and content can be difficult at the best of times. But add in competitor products sat next to yours on a real or virtual shelf and it becomes all the trickier to win your customer’s loyalty.

DTC presents the opportunity to gain more control by combining storytelling and commerce to stand out from the competition and forge a stronger affinity with your customers.

DTC could act as a tool to conduct market research for more effective product development. With a first-hand relationship with your customers in place, you can use the website to trial new products.

Backed by the knowledge of what your audience genuinely think of the product, you can be confident in making a pitch to further stockists helping you build a solid business case for further investment. 

Is this venture about product innovation and releasing limited edition products? A DTC channel gives you the chance to create and sell a product with a twist that other stockists can’t offer. This could include personalised packaging or a customised shoe design, for example.

Differentiating yourself from the competition by providing something that others can’t may well be the determining factor why shoppers choose to buy with you. Not only this, but limited-edition products get people talking too. Your customers are more likely to keep their purchase or share their personalised product far and wide on social 

media gaining you further exposure in the form of social proof

. This can be particularly useful in a more competitive market where lots of challenger brands exist.

DTC can open the door to plentiful opportunities such as attention-grabbing brand collaborations. Just take a look at what 

Goose Island and Cadbury Crème Egg achieved when they came together

. Only 1000 units of their limited 'eggdition’ were created and sold – not a lot in the grand scheme of things. However, the publicity both brands received from this collaboration has been invaluable with ongoing mentions across renowned publishers and social media too.

It's clear to see there’s more to DTC than simply selling and making a profit. What you define as profitable might not be the DTC channel being profitable itself but the brand in its entirety being profitable. These holistic benefits can instantly make the endeavour worth it for many. When you think about profit, consider what the net benefit of adding these other success metrics into the mix is.

It’s important to remember that going DTC can generate challenges completely unique to your business which is why it’s often worthwhile seeking advice from an expert. However, there are certain scenarios where DTC is more likely to be a success. Examples could include:

your product is hard to find outside of a certain location, but research shows there is a demand for it elsewhere in the country.

you can’t purchase your core range through another more convenient channel. 

you offer a product variation that’s exclusive to your business.

there’s a specific customer group who will buy from your website because they can’t get the product through any other channels.

there’s a gifting aspect to your product

 which persuades the customer to buy direct from you even though you can get the same content of the package elsewhere.

understanding if dtc is right for your business

Understanding if DTC is the right approach for your business can take a lot of research and considerations. Sometimes, it can be hard to create a solution when you’re so close to the challenge.

Working with an unbiased partner, you can be guided through an informed process to understand whether DTC is right for your business. We like to use a three-step cycle:

Defining your vision, the culture behind your DTC offering, the products you will offer, the business model and the team who will help to make it a success.

 Considering how your website will be created to best support your goals including design and user experience, technology choices and 

Always one to continue improving the solution, this step is used to 

, new feature development and ongoing performance analysis.

Born from eCommerce, we understand the challenges businesses face on a day-to-day basis. Having helped a number of brands go direct to consumer including 

 and Goose Island, we can support you in coming to a conclusion of whether DTC will be a profitable venture for your business.

Get in touch with our experts to chat more

finding a profitable route to market with dtc.

how shopping habits have changed this peak.

maintain your peak season momentum into next year. 

common barriers to ecommerce growth.

what to read next.

It's not time to stop thinking about Christmas just yet. We may still be recovering from excessive mince pies, vino and turkey, but before we box away the festive season until later this year and jump into that next campaign or season, there's important tasks to complete.

the lessons you can learn from peak to make 2022 even better.

the areas of your business you can gather valuable data and insights from.

how to make the most of your newly acquired customers this year.

In such busy times, we can all be guilty of putting the last 12 months to the back of our minds and simply cracking on with the year ahead.

However, you’ve just made it through the epic event of managing peak trading that wasn’t made any easier by an ongoing global pandemic. Before you jump in, take the time to reflect and celebrate those wins to set the scene for the year ahead and be sure to congratulate yourself (and your team) on last year’s achievements. 

lessons you can take into the next 12 months

We’re a couple of weeks into January, you’ve had chance to clear those emails and complete those admin tasks that awaited you in the new year. But before everybody gets pulled into the fast pace of 2022, this is an ideal time to book in some time with team members across key departments to review how peak went.

Catching up with your teams should be a top priority and you’ll get more out of the process if you do it collaboratively. Consider covering topics such as:

what lessons can you learn to make the year ahead even better?

while it’s fresh in your mind, what learnings can you take to implement into peak this year?

are there are any areas that didn’t work out as hoped?

With a huge volume of sales recently passing through your store, the sheer data available is just waiting for you to investigate. If you want to stay ahead, use all the learnings you possibly can to drive even better results this year.

It’s worth splitting this analysis down into multiple areas so it’s easier to spot learnings. While you explore each, consider how they compare to your expectations and the previous year.

Maybe a promotion or product surpassed expectations and was extremely successful. Or maybe you invested budget into a particular sales channel that didn’t perform as well as you hoped.

It’s important to have a critical yet open mindset to gather and make use of the most valuable insights you can gain from analysing:

 Which products sold well and which not so much?

 Where did the majority of your sales come from? Which channels performed particularly well, and which didn’t hit the mark?

 Which channels performed above the rest and which channels weren’t up to scratch?

 Did you experience any operational issues such as delayed delivery times or longer customer query response times?

 Did you notice any standout activity that other merchants were doing?

Acquiring customers is only half of it. During peak, you’ve invested significant time and money into gathering data. Don’t let your efforts stop there. This data can be leveraged into the new year to reengage with those who didn’t convert to generate more sales.

How will you make the most of these new customers to grow your repeat sales this year?

Ensure you’re continuing those all-important customer connections with engaging post-peak communications featuring new stock updates, sales events and general brand information.

Remarketing was made for post-peak, giving you a chance to win back some of those lost visitors. These campaigns can be used to target previous visitors, encouraging them to return and convert.

Once a visitor has engaged with your brand, you have more data on their preferences. Use this insight to define segments and create tailored ads in the new year that are suited to the individual. Dynamic ads can be used to automatically adapt content to each user, ensuring they always receive relevant ads with a higher chance of engagement.

 This time of year, is ideal to entice customers to purchase that product they’ve had their eye on for a discounted price. Remarketing ads can be used to advertise a product to a user who showed interest. You could even feature a discounted price or promotion code as an incentive to convert.

New products or season lines are a great hook for reengaging shoppers who have shown interest in similar items. Social media posts or emails can be used to showcase new stock to get visitors to return to your site and purchase again.

There’s so much to learn from peak season. Using your team on the front line, data and previous performance can help drive decisions to forge customer loyalty that will last beyond peak.

Taking all this into account will help you plan for the year ahead. Maybe there are changes you want to make to your store or developments that need to be done to make these improvements possible.

Putting a roadmap in place or an eCommerce calendar of sorts that can be 

carried out through a retainer plan will help you get the most from your website and budget

. If you need to chat more about the year that lays ahead and how it could look for your eCommerce store, 

contact our team of Shopify Plus and eCommerce experts.

Time to get going - there’s only 312 days (at the time of publish) until Black Friday!

what did you learn this peak.

Shopify released a new theme architecture called Online Store 2.0

. This update brings with it huge opportunities for developers who build Shopify themes or apps for Shopify merchants.

The introduction of Online Store 2.0 is a pretty big change for Shopify and one we’ve been speaking to our clients about. To shed some light on the impact of this update, we’re highlighting some of the changes versus the current Shopify theming and the benefits Online Store 2.0 delivers.

First, what is a Shopify theme? A theme controls the organisation, features and style of your Shopify eCommerce store. Different themes have different styles and offer a different experience for your customers which are selected based on the best alignment with your brand and store objectives.

Themes that use the previous Shopify architecture are now known as ‘vintage’. Vintage themes have two types – sectioned and non-sectioned. Your theme version determines which type your theme is as well as how it can be tailored and integrated with apps.

Dependent upon your theme architecture version you may also have access to new Shopify features. It’s also worth noting that upgrading to Online Store 2.0 isn’t mandatory. You can continue using a vintage theme if it better meets your business needs.

 can provide additional features including:

Historically, before an app could be present on a theme, the theme would have to be altered directly through an API. Now you can install or change apps without touching any code.

This has also created the concept of app blocks which means a section can have a block that is delivered directly from an app, allowing you to seamlessly add functionality anywhere within your theme.

A few years ago, Shopify introduced sections in the theme customiser to give more flexibility for content and dynamic sections. However, this customisation was only possible on the homepage.

With Online Store 2.0, you can now customise the content across the majority of your store’s pages. This includes adding, rearranging and removing sections to create unique page layouts.

You can now allow your customers to filter collections by multiple choices including availability, price and more for an easier and faster route to the products they want.

Meta fields have been one of Shopify’s best kept secrets. However, the only way you could really do anything with meta fields was through an app.

This is where dynamic content and the ability to directly integrate with meta fields comes in. With Online Store 2.0, you can add dynamic information to any setting in your theme by connecting it to a dynamic source. A dynamic source could be a resource attribute or a meta field value. This essentially allows dynamic content to be used in more places across the site.

It’s worth noting that the update doesn’t support every type of meta field. There will be cases where we would combine this new native functionality with an app to get the best of both worlds for our clients.

For clients who currently use page builders, it’s likely that a third-party tool will have been used. Offering the ability to have a component library where you can drag and drop different page elements, page builders put a lot of control into the hands of the site owner. But using a third-party tool has its pros and cons.

With 2.0, there is now a more native way to do this. That being said, it’s important for us to highlight that there are limits in Online Store 2.0. For example, you can only have 50 core templates per entity such as blog articles or products pages. When you add dynamic content into the mix, however, this creates a lot of variants for your eCommerce store.

With the release of Online Store 2.0 there has been a focus on speed. This has presented new opportunities including the chance to build some of the functionality into an existing theme and the ability to reengineer a theme to take advantage of those speed benefits.

For clients using page builders at the moment, the biggest limitation is usually speed as you are loading in resources from a third-party server. Other tasks currently limiting your site performance could be access to meta fields or certain filters for image processors.

If we can now deliver these elements through Online Store 2.0 natively, it will be much quicker and more efficient for everyone involved.

Online Store 2.0 brings the functionality to create specific templates for a collection rather than a template that’s applicable to all. This allows you to build out pages with the sections you want and assign templates to these for future use across your store. For example, you might want an email section sign up on your product page.

This same granularity can also be applied to your products giving you a lot of power to customise. Setting a template and assigning them to products, you have the ability to move buttons around, place elements in different areas or choose how you want information such as price above colour choice to be laid out.

empowering your internal team with component libraries

Online Store 2.0 provides gives us greater ability to build our sites in a component-driven way. We can now create a library of components for use across a whole site.

Our approach is to determine the components we will need across the full site 

 and build this into the theme itself. This allows us to deliver the assets for those components accordingly and the components can then be used where they’re wanted to ensure pages can be built out quickly and consistently.

Components can also be locked down to maintain the integrity of what can or can’t be used to create a better shopping experience. From a brand management perspective, this is really effective, ensuring your internal team know what is and isn’t appropriate for each page. Not only this but your team are empowered with more flexibility allowing them to create customised, rich experiences in-house with minimal support.

As an experienced Shopify agency, we’ve always made it our mission to get the most out of the platform. Previously, this might have involved workarounds or third-party apps to deliver the experience merchants needed. But Online 2.0 gives us the ability to do things natively that we couldn’t before. Not only does this mean richer and more interactive pages but also a better site management experience and site speed gains too.

Online Store 2.0 is an overhaul of how themes are built on Shopify. With sections across every page, app blocks and robust developer tools, the possibilities for developers and site administrators alike are really quite extensive.

What are your thoughts on Online Store 2.0 so far? We’re looking forward to exploring the new functionalities even further! 

Get in touch with our team of eCommerce experts to chat more

introducing shopify online store 2.0.

get ready for peak trading.

Gifting: Are You Ready for Peak?

preparing for peak 2021: maximising sales with shopify plus.

An awful lot of data is collected during peak. Just getting your head around the sheer volume can be challenging, never mind comprehending how to translate it into valuable actions.

But if you can turn this data into new, profound customer knowledge, you’re sure to stay ahead and improve that bottom line.

We’re sure your peak preparations are well underway

 but to get the maximum impact from your investment you need a plan for your post-peak activity too. With the busiest shopping season of the year edging closer, we’re discussing how you can make the most of it and see the benefit of your efforts last into the new year and beyond.

how to maximise the return of your peak investment

The best place to start is to look at your peak performance. There are a number of areas to consider that will give you key insight. This could include:

did your website handle the traffic influx? 

With promotions rife and competition at an all-time high, peak season is notorious for driving high traffic levels to your site. How did your website cope? Did your site withhold the influx? Did you experience any negative feedback from customers on their experience? 

If your site performance is getting you down

, consider how it could be improved to ensure that it can cope at busier times.


Optimisation.css-vykmad{color:var(--chakra-colors-brand-500);}.

Optimisation.